


Midnight on Luna

by rosaliepennington



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5996269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosaliepennington/pseuds/rosaliepennington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter has a late-night hallucination and goes to Jacin for comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight on Luna

Winter’s head was throbbing.

It was two minutes, thirty-seven seconds past midnight. She knew because she’d been counting. Her eyes tightly closed, it was the only way to keep at bay the image of blood seeping through the ceiling above her bed. But tears still managed to find their way out of her tightly closed eyes and down her cheeks. 

It’s all in your head.

Jacin.

Don’t worry. It’s all an illusion.

Jacin.

Come here. Take my hand.

Slowly, she sat up, and carefully glanced above her. She let out a sigh of relief. The ceiling had stopped bleeding.

For now. 

Winter pushed back the sheets, to which clung a thin layer or sweat. It was utterly silent in her bedroom except for the sound of her own heartbeat.

She crossed the room. 

Her stepmother had changed the all of the glass in the castle to stone years ago, but the outline of the window was still there. How she’d dreamed, over the years, of countless scenes beyond the cold stone rectangle. Sunrises. Sunsets. And then, different places entirely. 

Earthen countryside. Deserts of endless sand dunes. Cities, unlike any of Luna, cities full of light and warmth and the smell of greasy food wafting in through her window. Earth. 

These scenes far supplemented what she knew was truly behind her window of stone: a lake, long and deep, nearly overflowing with the corpses of Lunars found guilty of anything in her stepmother’s court.

Winter took a deep breath and pushed the brick of stone further in the wall, opening a tall, think cavity. A dark passageway, big enough for one person to slip in.

She hadn’t used it for years. Not since the palace wall started bleeding. She was afraid she’d drown in red liquid if she dared go inside.

But the passageway only looked dark now.

She would risk it. 

She had to see him. Touch him. She needed him, and she knew he needed her.

Winter edged her way into the cavity and then pushed the stone brick closed, enclosing herself in darkness.

 

Jacin had long since given up on sleeping that night.

He was lying on his back, spine straight, counting.

It was a thing he and Winter used to do. Count, and the second passed easier. Count, and your heart rate slowed. Count, and bad thoughts would slowly disappear. Count.

He’d learned it in training that counting at a steady rate lowered one’s heart rate, stress level, and therefore, one’s amount of stress-induced hallucinations. He put that information into play immediately. He’d forced Winter to try it. He remembered it had worked for an hour. An hour of counting, and him holding her hands and breathing in sync with her.

One. 

Two.

Three.

Jacin bit down on his cheek, tasting blood.

His princess. Alone. 

Alone.

He didn’t move, just thought. Cursed. Remembered her dreams about the blood on the walls—no, inside them. Stars.

He couldn’t imagine what it was like for her. 

Twelve.

Thirteen.

Four—

Creak.

Jacin didn’t move, didn’t stop counting, until he heard it a second time. He sat up and surveyed the room. Cursed again in his head. It was too dark.

“Jacin?”

Jacin couldn’t believe his ears. Shock and terror pounded through his head.

“Princess?”

“Yes, it’s me!” A delighted whisper carried through the room, followed by a squeak of his bedposts as a dark, lithe body draped in thin white fabric landed on his mattress.

Twenty-six.

Twenty-seven.

He had to calm down. Tell her to get back to her bedchambers. If she didn’t, he would be severely punished.

But the words wouldn’t come.

“Princess—,”

“Please,” Winter sat cross-legged in front of him. He could only detect the outline of her body in the blackness of his quarters. “Please…call me Winter, tonight, would you, sunshine?”

Sunshine. His heart skipped a beat.

Thirty—thirty nine? 

“Listen to me,” Jacin said, forcing the words out with as much emotion as he could. “Listen. You must get back to your bedchambers. Your guards will see that you’ve left.”

Winter wrapped her arms around herself and warily glanced at his ceiling. A heavy stone fell into his stomach.

“A hallucination, wasn’t it?”

Winter only continued to stare at his ceiling with growing unease. Her chest rose and fell faster every second.

“What is it?” Jacin asked quietly.

“The same. The blood. So much blood.” She shuddered.

Jacin reached toward her. “Where’s your hand?”

“Here,” she said, and grasped his fingers. The touch sent a volt of electricity through Jacin’s arm.

“Come here,” Jacin muttered, pulling the sheets aside as Winter crawled toward him. She tucked her body under the blankets, and pulled Jacin toward her with their clasped hands. Jacin settled comfortably against her.

Damn it, Jacin thought. 

He could never say no to Princess Winter.


End file.
